


I'll Bare My Soul To You

by clairefraser



Category: Outlander (TV) RPF
Genre: F/M, NSFW, Season 1: The Reckoning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:08:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26283178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clairefraser/pseuds/clairefraser
Summary: Caitríona comes to a startling realisation during the filming of her first intimate scene with Sam.
Relationships: Caitriona Balfe/Sam Heughan
Comments: 16
Kudos: 89





	1. Chapter 1

Caitríona is no blushing virgin when it comes to dropping trou in front of a room of people, her entire body up for display. She’s been there before, standing stock still and letting others scrutinise every line and curve, not unlike an object offered up for sale. There’s a certain vulnerability that comes with baring oneself; though she has learned that even without a stitch of clothing, she can still conceal all that is within her mind.

She had known long before tossing her hat into the ring that the role of  _ Claire Beauchamp _ meant occasional violence, nudity and a fair amount of explicit scenes. While she was fairly new in the world of film and television, acting had always been a part of her, as cheesy as that was to say. The discussion about what she was comfortable with had taken place in a room full of production members, and her co-stars, who had to answer the same questions. It had almost been clinical; touching, squeezing, kissing, licking, biting, sucking were all on the table, with the body parts these actions were to be performed on to be confirmed prior to rehearsals for particular scenes. 

There had been nerves of course, in the lead up to it all; it wasn’t like she could practice the intimate parts by herself, as she did with the rest of her scenes, running lines in front of the bathroom mirror and imagining she was watching her character come to life in her reflection. 

She had bitten the bullet and gotten her first sex scene over and done with in the early days of shooting; There had been a little awkwardness, but that was to be expected, and all in all, she hadn’t hated the experience. It was all for the show. There were boundaries in place, and she had slipped straight into character, even before they were told to move into position. Acting, as an artform in its purest state. Tobias had been a real gentleman throughout the entire process, having far more experience than her in their shared profession, and they had made crude jokes together about it afterwards. 

The pressure she had felt then was not unlike a gentle gust of wind, and the slightest shower of raindrops upon her skin. 

The thought of filming with Sam, was like standing, frozen, in the eye of a hurricane, waiting to be swept away.

They had first met, what feels like a lifetime ago now; Los Angeles, in a dingy office meeting room. She had looked him up beforehand of course, scrolling through countless articles and photos, wanting to get a glimpse of the man who had so quickly won a lead role, as was her ambition to. The casting calls for the main characters had come out at the same time; she remembers her agent coming to her and telling her about the opportunity then. Less than a month later, before she had come to a decision about whether or not she should even try, she had seen the announcement that he had been cast.

She had sent in a tape then, wondering if she had once again ruined things for herself by waiting too long, as was her habit. There had been weeks of radio silence from her agent afterwards, and in that time Caitríona had fallen into a bit of a slump. It hadn't yet reached the  _ 'walking around her apartment in only her knickers, eating ice-cream straight from the container'  _ stage, but most evenings had found her curled up on the sofa, reading through countless articles about  _ Sam Heughan _ and desperately waiting for her phone to ring. He was tall, which was saying something considering her own height, and he was a looker; no surprise there. 

Of course she had ceased all forms of online stalking once the call came in that she had been given a chance to audition. A preconception of the man who could end up as a permanent fixture in her life for quite some time had already begun to form at that point, and it wouldn't be fair to him and a future working relationship if she continued. As things stood, he already seemed to fit the stereotype that came with being a marginally successful actor and a good looking man to boot; never lacking in female companionship and a smirk that spelled overconfidence and swagger.

God, how she had prayed he wouldn't be a complete arsehole.

She hadn't learned that her audition would be a chemistry test until three days before, when the scripts had finally come in. The casting team clearly wanted to put the pressure on each and every candidate, though she had known no amount of time could have prepared her for what she would face during that audition. 

And so she had walked  _ (ran) _ into that room, ten minutes late and almost entirely out of breath and he had just been standing there, leaning casually against the table where the show's producers were gathered, chatting to them with the ease and nonchalance of a man who already had his future secured and laid out in front of him. 

He'd turned in her direction, and everything else around them faded away. 

In that moment, she had been overwhelmed, with a feeling so foreign she couldn't find the right words to describe it. Their gazes had locked for what felt like an eternity, and despite the confusion in her mind she had noticed it, the strange look that flashed in his eyes, lasting for only a single heartbeat but apparent all the same. It felt as though she had been taken apart and put back together, the pieces fitting together differently than before. But then her name had been called and the moment had ended, as all things do.

She had poured every ounce of emotion in her body into that audition, but the truth of the matter was that it had come easily to her, and not because acting was what she was born for. The casting director had commented on her performance, complimented her on her skills, told her that they could really feel the attraction, that it had felt authentic. 

Caitríona had smiled, and thanked them.

In her mind she had whispered; 

_ It felt real because I wasn't pretending. _

But she knew,  _ she knows _ , that things between co-stars never work out, that relationships so heavily scrutinised by the media will almost always inevitably end in failure. The day she had gotten the call that the role of Claire was hers, she had buried those feelings. 

Deep.

Hoping they would be forgotten.

And since then Sam had become her friend, a close confidant, someone she trusted with all her secrets. The time they had spent together and the memories they created were ones that she would keep with her always. She let her guard down around him, and perhaps that was her second mistake.

Her first was thinking that the glimmer of attraction she felt for him in the beginning could be so easily forgotten. And yes, she had dug a hole and hidden away that spark, buried treasure to perhaps some day be unearthed, when this was all over and she needed something to look back on. But what she had felt for him then was not like a precious gemstone or a nugget of gold.

It was a seed, and it had taken root, sprouted and pushed itself up towards the surface once more. Growing unawares and so vigorously that it was far too late to eradicate now.

Now that they're about to sit in a room and film their first intimate scene together, she thinks he'll see it. She doesn't have a glass face, not like Claire, but when they're there, her body bared for the world to see, he'll realise it.

Something will give her away.

The trembling of her body, perhaps.

The flush of rosy red across her cheeks and between her breasts.

The race of her pulse, the thundering beat of her heart.

The heat of her very core, the dampness between her thighs.

The way she nearly leaps out of her skin when he comes up behind her and settles a hand on her shoulder, clearly already in character, speaking in  _ Jamie's  _ voice.

"Are ye ready then?"

She can see it as she turns to face him, how he morphs back into himself, the growing concern in his eyes, clear as day.

"Is everything alright, Cait?"

_ Cait.  _ He had called her that from the beginning, taking one look at her name and horrendously sounding it out the way it was spelt.  _ “Kate-Ri-Oh-Na” _ he had said, wrinkling his nose and she had laughed, embarrassingly loud. 

She shakes her head at the memory, and then nods, perhaps a little more vigorously than the occasion calls for.

"I'm fine. Just a little nervous, that's all."

It's his turn to nod then. A subtle raise of his eyebrows as he studies her face tells her that he doesn't quite believe her, but he doesn't question her about it. It's one of his finer traits, knowing when to leave things alone, to not push too far.

"We'll be fine, as long as you don't accidentally slip and cut my throat." He raises his hands in the air, making air quotes around the word  _ accidentally _ and she throws her head back and laughs, earning her stares from the crew setting up around them who are still getting used to her random outbursts of laughter before and after and sometimes even during takes. She laughs and he smiles; just two friends sharing a joke, nothing more, nothing less.

"That would make for quite the headline," she responds after a moment, and they lapse into silence then, mentally preparing themselves for the day that lay ahead. 

They rehearsed this earlier on in the week, on a day where they were both free from shooting other scenes. Half dressed and in the company of about two dozen crew members, they had listened patiently to the director's commentary as they arranged themselves on the ground, running through their already memorised lines and trying not to laugh as they figured out whose hands would go where. There would be no spontaneity here, each and every action planned and practised beyond reproach. Knowing exactly what’s to come should have helped soothe her fears, but it serves to do exactly the opposite. 

She knows how her body reacts to his touch;

Has since that first day, when out of the blue, right towards the end of the audition, they had been instructed to kiss. She should have anticipated such a request, but she had not prepared herself for it. Sam had tilted his head to the side, studied her for a moment and then shrugged, before cupping her face with both hands and leaning in. 

The kiss had sent a thousand bolts of desire through her body; the swipe of his tongue against her lower lip making her weak in the knees. She had been bold then, and bitten him, regretting her actions as soon as he tensed, his entire body going stock still. But when they pulled apart afterwards, he appeared to be completely unaffected, and she wondered how many women he had already kissed that day, and the day before that. The thought had sent an unfamiliar feeling of jealousy straight through her, one she did her best to do away with, in the same manner she tried to shove whatever feelings she might have about him to one side. Of course they had kissed since then, during rehearsals and various scenes, and she likes to think she’s maintained control throughout the entire process. The other option is far too embarrassing to even consider. 

She had pushed herself into a different headspace then, as she does now, turning over her dressing gown to an assistant and making her way over to her mark. Caitríona exists no longer; she’s Claire now.

_ Claire _ , who is about to hold a dagger to her husband’s throat and ride him into oblivion. It is  _ Jamie _ who kneels before her, curls a thousand shades of red and gold in the shifting lift, looking into her eyes as they’re called to action

When her shift slips from her body, she shudders at the shock of cool air upon her skin and then again when she feels the heat of his hands. Their kisses are wet, hurried and desperate, as if trying to consume one another. It almost burns, as his fingers skirt from her collarbone down to her hip and across her thighs. There’s a hand in her hair, tugging at her wild mane, so ferociously it almost stings, and then he’s dipping his head, curls tickling her chest as he takes a nipple into his mouth. He sucks, swirls his tongue around the hardened peak, grazing his teeth against it. 

The pleasure of it ripples straight to her core and she freezes, comes back to herself. 

He pulls away then but the cameras are still rolling. 

“Sorry, didn’t mean to bite you,” he says, loud enough for the entire room to hear, and she knows he’s doing it to save her from embarrassment, to pin the blame on himself for messing up the take. 

She wants him even more for it. 

On the next take, her hand slips as she’s holding the blade to his throat, and she slumps forward, falling onto his chest, skin against skin. She hears his muffled curse and lets out an audible  _ “fuck”  _ herself, pushing herself upright by bracing her hand against his shoulder, feeling the sweat between their bodies. The blade falls from her hands, and she sees the mark she’s left on his neck, a thick red line where she had pressed far too hard.

She whispers that she’s sorry and they begin again.

And again.

The entire situation is so fucking difficult, no pun intended.

It's hard, no pun intended.

She's gotten to a point where she is filled,  _ no pun intended _ , with sexual innuendo, in order to distract herself from the thought of him, lying beneath her, lying stock still as she rolls her hips against his. Where she's all plushy around the middle, with breasts and an arse, all curved and soft enough to squeeze, his entire body is carved from marble.

His chest is as solid as the ground itself, his muscles bulging even when they're not in use, and honestly she can't tell what she's feeling down there, between his legs and hers, because he's always this  _ stiff. _

_ Pun most definitely intended. _

There’s the heavy fabric of his kilt separating them, and she thinks he’s probably wearing his modesty pouch beneath it all, just in case the camera’s catch something unsightly. She had referred to it as a “cock sock” once, when they were embarrassingly drunk and ribbing one another about the ordeals that lay in their future, and the name had stuck. It’s not as though she’s deliberately trying to gauge whether or not he’s aroused by all this, certainly not for the purpose of making herself feel a little better about the stain that’s surely formed on her shift by now. 

When they break for lunch, she covers herself up with her robe, securing a knot in the front before she moves off him, not willing to risk anyone seeing evidence of her impure thoughts. Though she had been reassured by many that actors were often aroused in these circumstances, she knows what she feels for Sam is most definitely  _ not _ normal, and it almost feels as though she is taking advantage of his body through their work together. She flushes then, a reddened bloom of embarrassment across her face, and very pointedly does not make eye contact as she heads off to eat. 

_ Alone. _

She switches off and spends the next hour browsing through furniture catalogues online, searching for something to spruce up her new flat, absentmindedly twirling her fork in the rather unappetising salad she had picked out. The leaves are all wilted and there’s a suspicious looking bruise on one of the tomatoes, but the entire bowl is coated in a heavy vinaigrette that assaults all her senses at once. She forces it down anyway, feeling it settle low in her stomach before heading back to her trailer to wash her mouth out. Sam is nowhere to be found, which she is grateful for, just needing a little space to breathe without his presence. She steals his mouthwash, seeing it already conveniently placed on the countertop of their shared bathroom, and remembers that it hadn’t been there when she left earlier in the morning. He was a man that was awfully meticulous about his belongings, and she thinks he may have left it out just for her. 

The implications are too terrifying to ponder on for more than a moment. 

He’s already there when she returns to set, chatting easily with two of the crew members who are hanging off his every word. She wonders if it’s how she looks when he speaks to her, but brushes the thoughts aside when he turns in her direction, giving her a cheeky grin. 

This time, when the cameras begin rolling once more, she’s determined to get it right. 

She touches him in all the places that they had agreed upon, throws her head back and moans and whimpers at all the right moments, and ignores the burning sensation on her back and knees as her skin is rubbed raw against the carpet. But during one take, when they switch positions and she’s pulled up into his lap, she thinks she can feel him and lets out an involuntary gasp, his name leaving her lips in a drawn out sigh. 

_ God, she hopes that no one heard her.  _


	2. Chapter 2

It’s half past eight in the evening once they wrap up for the day, and she has to lie there for a moment, struggling to catch her breath as she’s informed that they have all the takes they need. She watches as Sam slips into his navy blue dressing gown and hightails it out of the room before she even has a chance to speak with him about it, and supposes he’s probably sick of her company by now. Or perhaps he had heard her awkward slip-up and was simply giving her some space. 

Trying to make his intentions clear.

Her mind is an endless spiral of confusing thoughts as she makes her way back to their trailer, shuddering from the cold, and just wanting the day to be over. She had been dragged into a conversation with the assistant director, and then taking an even longer detour through costuming to have a dress refitted so that the seamstress would have time to make the modifications by tomorrow morning. 

It’s past ten and the lights are on inside, which means Sam still hasn't left for the night, and she’s not quite sure she’s ready for a couch potato evening with him, winding down together and sharing a beer or two over whatever was playing on television. 

When she reaches the door, she pulls it open, as quietly as she can manage, not wanting to disturb him, especially if he’s in a mood after the long day. She can hear the shower running, and the temporary partition is up when she makes her way inside, which tells her that he’s equally as unenthusiastic about striking up any sort of conversation, and she slumps down onto her cot with a sigh, wondering if she should have her driver make a detour to pick up food on the way back to her flat, or just skip dinner altogether. 

She  _ deserves _ some good old fashioned carbs after a day like this. 

Just as she’s reaching for her underwear, preparing to get dressed, she hears it, a muffled groan coming from the other end of the trailer. For a moment, she wonders if her mind is playing tricks on her after a tiring day, but then she hears it again, this time louder, and accompanied by a loud thump that has her heart in her throat. 

Leaping to her feet without a second thought, she rushes over to the partition and pulls it aside, slipping into what had been designated Sam’s side of the trailer. The bathroom sits all the way down his end, and she can hear nothing but running water as she moves closer. 

_ What if he had fallen and hurt himself? _

She raises a hand to knock, and then freezes.

_ “Fuck…”  _ followed by another groan.

She realises then the grave error she has made, feels her cheeks flushing red with embarrassment. He was in there, relieving whatever tensions had built up from the day, and she could not be caught standing outside, eavesdropping like some kind of pervert. But her feet are rooted in place, and she cannot bring herself to move. 

He sounds… he sounds exactly as he did earlier, when he was beneath her, above her, pretending to  _ fuck _ her.

The knowledge of it makes her clamp her thighs together, a sudden flood of arousal that somehow knocks a little sense into her. She turns to flee, to disappear before she can be caught in such a compromising position, and then she hears it. 

_ “Cait.” _

His voice calling out her name, low and heavy with arousal; it sounds exactly as she had imagined it, the one time when she had been so drunk and completely off her rocker, lying alone in her cold apartment, pressing three fingers inside herself, trying to picture  _ his  _ instead. 

She makes a choice then. 

She chooses to be bold.

Not unlike Claire. 

Taking in a shuddering breath, she reaches out and turns the knob, throwing the door open before the rational part of her mind can talk her out of it. There’s a split-second before he notices her and she drinks it in, the sight of him standing beneath the hot spray of the shower, one arm braced against the tiled walls, his other hand fisted around his cock, moving furiously up and down. But then he turns and she catches a wild look in his eyes as he registers her presence and drops both hands in an attempt to cover himself up. 

“Jesus Caitríona, don’t you know how to knock?”

She takes one step, and then another, pulling the door shut behind her;he looks confused, and embarrassed and quite frankly annoyed that she’s interrupted his alone time, but those emotions are quickly replaced with something else as his gaze drifts to her hand, slowly untying the belt of her robe. He swallows, his throat moving with the action, and then she’s letting the fabric slip from her shoulders, slip from her body, pooling to the ground around her feet. 

She’s baring herself now, not just her body, but also her mind, and hopes that this won’t end in a restraining order and court-mandated therapy. 

His hands slowly drift upwards, and then she can see him once more,  _ all of him.  _ She stays still as he reaches out, pushing the screen of the shower aside, leaving nothing but air between them. It would only take a single step from where she is to be standing right beside him, but she hasn’t even fully considered the implications of what taking that last step would mean for her, for  _ them _ . 

He holds her gaze, and slowly extends his hand out to her. She can see the evidence of his arousal, not only in the dilation of his pupils but also his cock, standing firm and proud between his legs. It’s clear that there are no expectations here; he’s giving her a choice, to turn around and flee and forget all about it when they see each other again in the morning. 

And the far more terrifying option, to follow her heart. 

_ I would have never met him _ , she thinks, if she had not taken a risk and sent in that audition tape. 

And so she closes the distance between them, not because she’s scared to run, but because she wants it more than anything in the world. 

He pulls her beneath the spray, wrapping both his arms around her waist and she can feel the hot water drenching her hair, seeping into her skin, stinging the reddened patches on her arms and back. 

“Do you want me?” he whispers, and she wants to laugh, because she doesn’t think she could have made herself any more obvious. She knows that he’s asking out of consideration for her, giving her one last opportunity to change her mind, but most men wouldn’t think of such things if a woman was standing naked in their arms. 

_ He really was the perfect man to embody James Fraser. _

She presses herself against him, winding her arms around his neck and feels his cock digging into her belly, pictures how it might feel in her grasp, in her mouth, in  _ her _ and sinks her teeth into her bottom lip, peering up at him through her lashes. He stares at her, studies her face and it feels as though he can see right through her, know every thought within her mind, every little secret she’s ever kept. 

“Yes,” she says, and thinks it would be the answer to any question he ever deigned to ask her. 

He breathes, shakily, and she can feel it against her chest, the shuddering heave of his lungs. There’s one last pause, and then he’s lowering his lips to meet hers, and suddenly she’s back in that dingy office where they had kissed for the first time. 

When she had known that her life would be forever changed. 

His hands drift lower, scorching her skin; the scalding water feels lukewarm in comparison. He grabs her arse, fingers kneading the flesh and she grinds against him, panting against his mouth. 

“You can’t even imagine how long I’ve wanted this,” he tells her, dragging his lips across her cheek, along the column of her neck and sinking his teeth into her, somehow finding the one spot that makes her weak in the knees. He sucks at her skin and she can feel the bruise blooming; she’ll wear it as a badge of pride tomorrow, ignoring the curious looks from the make-up team as they work their magic to hide it. If this, whatever it is, continues, she has a feeling they’ll have their work cut out for them in the future. 

“I might have some idea,” she responds, turning her head to give him easy access to the other side of her neck. 

“Aye, is that so?”

He pulls back then, holding her at arm’s length, the water continuing to pour between them. 

“How long have you wanted me?”

She blinks, breathes, and tells herself that it’s okay. That she trusts this man. Trusts that he won’t hurt her.

“The audition.”

A flash of…  _ something _ appears in his eyes and then it’s gone; his smile fades and she sees him biting the inside of his cheek as he drags his gaze over her body. 

“I win.”

He pulls her towards him then, kisses her, deeply, tongue exploring her mouth, one strong hand on her back, pressing her against his cock, the other drifting between her legs, slipping between her slickened folds, making her cry out at the simple touch.

“I didn’t realise this was a competition,” she gasps. Her entire body is trembling from the effort of forming coherent thoughts, coherent sentences, even as he begins to tease her, dipping his fingers shallowly inside her, not quite giving her what she desires most in this moment. 

“If it were, I’d win,” he murmurs in her ear before running his tongue along the shell, taking the lobe between his lips and nibbling with his teeth. 

“How long have you wanted me?” she asks then, mirroring his words from earlier. He doesn’t answer her straight away, instead, inserting one finger deep inside her, thrusting for a moment before pulling out once more. 

“Your cunt is so tight. I can’t wait to feel it around my cock.” 

Despite being lost in the pleasure of it all, she’s still lucid, aware that he had very pointedly chosen not to answer her question. She slides an arm between their bodies and takes his cock in her hand, committing the feel of it to memory; hard like steel and smooth as velvet. With her other hand, she cups his face, using her thumb to force him to look her in the eye as she gives an experimental pump with her other hand, purposely rough.

“How long?”

She knows, instinctively, that he won’t make her ask a third time. 

“I watched your tape… knew then that you were the one.”

Her breath leaves her in a sigh then, the implication of his words slamming into her like a speeding train. 

_ The one.  _

Not for Claire, no.

_ For him. _

She kisses him then, slipping her hand from his face to the back of his head, twining her fingers into the curls there. Sweeping declarations through words have never been her strong suit, and so she tries to pour every ounce of what she’s feeling for him into it; what she has felt for him since the very first day, all that her foolish mind had tried to keep hidden away. It’s somehow sweet and passionate rolled into one, even as she feels his cock pulsing in her hand, evidently desperate for release.

How long had he been in here, pleasuring himself to thoughts of her? 

Had he done it before?

How many times had they been sitting on either side of that fucking wall, thinking about one another?

These are all questions she plans on getting the answers to,  _ after _ she’s seen to that they’re both satisfied for the night. 

“I want you to fuck me,” she says, punctuating her words with a squeeze to his cock. She feels, rather than sees, the shudder that runs through his body as she speaks and grins, giving him one last gentle tug before letting go. There aren’t many options for fucking in a shower, and she wrinkles her nose as she considers the possibilities. Putting logic above all else, she turns, preparing to bend over and over up her hindquarters to him when he digs his fingers into her hip, and then forces her to face him once again. 

“No,” he growls, and the force of it sends a shiver down her spine. “I want to watch you, see you as I enter you for the first time. I need to remember the look on your face.”

She nods, shakily, so aroused she can feel it dripping down her thighs before being washed away by the spray of the shower. He turns them, flips their positions so quickly that she loses her breath once more. Her back is pressed up against the shower tiles, cold against her skin; it soothes the sting of the carpet-burns she’s accumulated throughout the day but the thought is quickly pushed to the back of her mind as his knee presses between her thighs, coercing her legs apart. 

True to his word, his gaze never leaves her face, even as she looks down, watching him, casually pumping his cock with one hand, the other reaching to wrap around her thigh, easing her leg into the air. She balances there, almost unsteady until he presses closer, pinning her against the wall. 

There isn’t a single word to fully describe how she feels as he thrusts inside her, fills her to the brim. 

_ Whole. _

_ Complete. _

_ The final piece of a puzzle, locking into place. _

_ Two souls, joined as one. _

“I’ve waited my entire life for you,” he tells her one he’s bottomed out, just saying there for a moment, allowing her to adjust to the sensation of his cock, sheathed within her. 

She wants to weep, to curl up in a ball and write about it in a journal, doodle hearts around the borders. 

She remembers laughing before, when hearing tales about love at first sight; the thought of somehow meeting a person that had been created solely for the purpose of being her other half was so ludicrous. 

She doesn’t laugh now. 

He rests his forehead against hers, his nose pressing into her cheek and she sees the way he forces his eyes to stay open, clenching his teeth, shaking from the control. She lets out a low whine, rolling her hips and forcing her muscles to squeeze around him, making her intentions clear.

When he begins moving inside her, thrusting deep and slow she cries out, needing more, more, more. One of his hands drifts to her chest, squeezing one breast and then the other, rolling the nipple between his fingertips, giving sharp tugs in time with his other movements. She feels it, as he trails his fingers downwards, brushing her waist and then drifting towards where they are joined. 

He’s close. The vein on his forehead is prominent, pulsing, throbbing and she knows now that he’s exactly the kind of man who would see to her pleasure before finding his own. Her theory is confirmed when she feels the roughened pad of his thumb rub up against her clit, and she grinds against it, seeking just a touch more friction. 

She’s never reached her peak so quickly before, with so little stimulation, but she can feel it building within her, the pleasure flaring out in all directions. When she comes, it’s…

Mind-blowing.

Earth-shattering.

Life-changing. 

Every fucking cliche in the book. 

She clamps down around him, squeezing him as tightly as she can, needing to feel him find his release, needing it to be inside her. His movements are rough, jerky as he thrusts into her, once, twice, before freezing. He growls, the sound rumbling in his chest; she can feel the vibrations against hers. His teeth sink into her shoulder as he pulses inside her and she knows she will never get tired of this. 

They’re both trembling from the aftershocks when he lifts his head, eyes still cloudy with desire and kisses her. It’s soft and sweet and so gentle; the reverence with which he lowers her leg to the ground, running a soothing hand against the reddened marks left by his fingers, skimming his lips over the bite marks on her neck and shoulders. She cries out at the loss of him when he slips from inside her, but he swallows the sound.

She’s boneless, weightless and thinks she will either float away or collapse to the ground if he lets go of her, and thinks that she shouldn’t be surprised when he doesn’t. He manoeuvers them beneath the cascading water once more and reaches for the hot pink loofah she had brought in one day as a joke, telling him that he was in no circumstances to steal it for his own use. She leans her head back as he lathers her body with soap, the familiar scent of orange blossom wafting in the air around them, and allows him to scrub the day from her skin. He presses kisses to almost every inch of her, lips soft and pillowy, stubble prickly. 

His actions are not meant to arouse, but she feels the gentle tug all the same, though it is overwhelmed by adoration and tenderness and all else that has turned her insides into marshmallow fluff. She’s drowsy and blissed out and barely registers it when he turns off the water, wrapping his arms around her from behind and holding her back to his chest, the two of them swaying in the vapours. He presses another kiss to her neck, just above the spot where she knows a bruise is forming, and then reaches out, sliding the screen to one side and gently nudging her until she’s aware enough to move. 

She stands there, a soft smile on her face as he reaches for a towel and dries her off, and then himself. He looks down at her robe, in a pile on the floor and retrieves it, hanging it on the hook on the door beside his; always organised, even at times like this. 

“Come home with me tonight,” he whispers to her, when he’s dressed once more and she’s still standing there, without a stitch of clothing on. She nods, ducking her head; suddenly shy.

He moves to her, lifting her chin with a finger and kisses her again.

It should feel strange; how quickly their relationship has evolved in the span of a day, but it doesn’t. It feels natural, it feels right, it feels as though it was meant to be.

As if the universe itself demanded it, and they were helpless to fight against it.

She feels only confidence as she walks back to her end of the trailer, fingers interlaced with his, her hips swaying gently from side to side, earning her a none-too-gentle-swat to the bum. 

He laughs when she shrieks. 

They maintain eye contact as she dresses; he’s taken control of her phone and is sending a message to her driver telling him that he has the rest of the night off. He shows it to her after he’s sent it and looking at the excessive emojis, she is convinced that half the crew will know about their  _ relationship _ by tomorrow. And if that doesn’t clue him in, the smug grin on  _ Sam’s _ driver’s face when the man picks them up twenty minutes later tells her that there’s very little hope of them keeping things under wraps, at least not in the eyes of their colleagues. 

On the drive back to his place, they pop by a pub that does take-away and pick up burgers and chips, pigging out in the back of the car. Sam keeps getting distracted and tries to bite her fingers instead, and they’re giggling like a pair of children by the time they’re dropped off. He keeps one hand on her back the entire way up to his apartment, as though he’s afraid she’ll suddenly disappear if he stops touching her. 

They toe off their shoes at the front door, and she watches with mock exasperation as he lines them up neatly by the wall. She’s exhausted and knows he must be as well. It’s growing close to midnight and she wants nothing more than sleep. He takes her hand in his, and guides her to his bedroom. When he begins to strip off his clothes, she follows suit, until she’s left only in her panties.

He kisses her once more before the fall asleep, curled up together beneath the sheets, her back flush to his front, his arm draped across her body, and their fingers interlaced. 

“I can’t wait to wake up in the morning, with you in my arms,” he tells her, nuzzling the back of her neck, and she smiles, eyes slowly drifting shut. 

When they speak of this day in the future, in interviews, describing the act of performing their first love scene together, they’ll tell the world about all the painful carpet burns. 

They won’t tell anyone about how it was the day two became one.

The best things in life are often better kept as secrets. 


End file.
